I've enjoyed watching The Day of the Jackal, with tonight's final episode living up to the standards set by the previous nine in this Sky Atlantic TV series. Yep, ten episodes - a lot more screen time than the excellent film from 1973 - so naturally there's quite a bit of padding. But thanks to a truly mesmeric performance by the brilliant Eddie Redmayne as the cold-blooded killer nicknamed the Jackal, and several scenes of gripping suspense, the series was a success.
How much does the TV show owe to Frederick Forsyth's original novel, a masterly thriller which I devoured with relish as a teenager, as soon as it came out in paperback? Very little, is the answer. Yes, it tells the story of a brilliant assassin who prepares meticulously, and it involves a game of cat and mouse between those hunting him and the man himself. But overall, it's very different. (That's what they mean when they say the story has been 'reimagined'). But presumably it suited both Mr Forsyth and the TV company to make profitable use of such a well-known story brand.
Ronan Bennett's script, which brings the action into the present day, has great strengths and also some noticeable weaknesses. The idea of making the intended target of the Jackal's hit an IT mogul with a social conscience strikes me as inspired. I also like the way the shadowy figures who are responsible for hiring the Jackal are presented; their leader is Charles Dance at his most sinister, and he makes the most of his relatively limited screen time. Two other ingredients in the story helped to stretch the material to fit ten episodes, but didn't - in my opinion - work as well.
First, the Jackal may be a sociopath, but he is given a human side, with a wife (Nuria, played by Ursula Cobero) and child to whom he is devoted. He's even bought the family a fancy house in Spain and made himself vulnerable by doing his best to chum up with Nuria's useless brother and her mother. Given the Jackal's extreme ruthlessness (brilliantly shown in a flashback to Helmand, when he was still in the army), I didn't find the psychology of this scenario convincing, but such is Redmayne's skill as an actor that he just about persuaded me to swallow it.
Less effective, I felt, was the depiction of the MI6 hunt for the Jackal. Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch) is a mix of comic book action hero and soap opera character with a troubled family life and a working life plagued by useless and venal bosses. There were moments when these parts of the script resembled something AI might have cobbled together, so predictable and formulaic did they seem. Thankfully, there were a number of scenes - above all those in Helmand and the Jackal's murderous activities, perhaps most notably his scheme to shoot his target whilst the man went out for a swim - which were so powerful that the weaknesses paled into insignificance. And as a final episode bonus, it was wonderful to see Philip Jackson, better known as Chief Inspector Japp from Hercule Poirot, in a genuinely poignant and compelling cameo.
No comments:
Post a Comment